PlayStation 5: 8 Rumours We Hope AREN'T True

Some believe that the PlayStation 5 will be the last console of its kind, Sony's final high-end gaming machine before a new age where streaming is king gets underway.

What we're talking about here goes far beyond the removal of a physical disc drive in favour of digital downloads. A generation or so from now, advancements in streaming technology and online connectivity could mean that nobody needs a superpowered console with oodles of hard drive space under their television. All software could be hosted up in the cloud and beamed into the living room on demand.

This rumour gained traction following comments by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, who told Variety that the PS5 generation will mark the end of an era.

"I think we will see another generation, but there is a good chance that step-by-step we will see less and less hardware. With time, I think streaming will become more accessible to many players and make it not necessary to have big hardware at home. There will be one more console generation and then after that, we will be streaming, all of us."

We may have already seen the beginnings of this shift with services like PlayStation Now, but here's hoping there will never be a time when gaming relies entirely on streaming.

No matter how advanced broadband gets, there will always be outages and corners of the world where connectivity is far from flawless. In these examples, an online-only console is just an expensive living room ornament.

The point about the collectability of physical games also applies here.